Rain
by kristimazing
Summary: "It's like this line is drawn somewhere in the world and if you never cross it, you'll never consider throwing yourself off a building or swallowing a bottle of pills—but if you do, you might." - Mitch Albom / One-shot based off of the 12C promos, specifically the Cam-plot. {CamxDallasxMaya}


**A/N:** I started this over the summer and I cannot even begin to explain how many phases this story has gone through. Originally, it wasn't even a Degrassi fic; it was an original story. Somehow, it had been twisted in a Third Watch fic, and then a Third Watch / Degrassi crossover, and then solely Degrassi with Cam as the focal character and a rather Third Watch-y police officer, but then I watched the promos for 12C and I was like "I am some kind of psychic!" But I switched out the police officer out for some Ice Hounds. I stayed completely true to my theories. In regards to Cam, I feel like this is a very plausible option.

Getting back to the promos, can I just say holyohmygodwhatisdegrassidoi ngtous!? INSANE. MENTAL. CRAZY. I am having miniheartattacks in anticipation for the fifteenth. I hope this doesn't disappoint!

Thank you for reading, lovelies!

~ Kristi

PS: Just in case you read my only full length fanfic— the second chapter of The Little Things is on its way; it's in the home-stretch.

PPS: I kind of may have moved Degrassi to a more urban area… it was done sort of subconsciously. I hope you guys don't mind. Haha.

* * *

The white-washed sky hung heavy over the Toronto suburb, suffocating all that lay beneath it. It had been overcast for months, it seemed, the weather simply threatening to flood the unfamiliar streets and alleys and perhaps even a basement or two. Had he been home, he would have relished in the less than desirable weather. He loved the calm-before-the-storm. Here, however, it just made him feel more and more homesick with each passing minute.

The afternoon breeze ruffled his hair, his legs gently swayed back and forth as they dangled off the ledge. He counted the people as they bustled by. Briefcases, pocketbooks, suits, high heels, dress shoes, it didn't matter that he was tens of feet off the ground; he could hear every click of a shoe, every rustle of a bag against business attire. He wondered how many people noticed him from the tired sidewalk, wondered what he was doing or even bothered to draw assumptions. He cursed himself for feeling so, but it hurt him a bit to know that he was so insignificant that even the passersby weren't the least bit concerned that he may very well splatter himself on the sidewalk in front of them and ruin their nice work clothes.

But that wasn't the reason he was up there. He wasn't going to _kill himself_. That would be absurd. He didn't want to _die_, he just wanted—needed space.

He shook his head, as if his manic thoughts could be simply forced out of his ears. Had he not just been pacing back and forth across the Degrassi Garden pleading with his temperamental anxiety, he wouldn't have been thinking them anyway. But perhaps that wasn't so true anymore. He seemed to grow more and more miserable by the day, a constant struggle between wanting to be happy and the incessant, pathological cycling with the cycling winning _**every- damned- time**_. He just wanted one week, hell, he'd even just go for one day, where he felt completely okay.

_Perhaps his finding himself on the ledge was a clue, a subconscious desire. _

He blew air out through his puffed cheeks, his heart bursting from his chest with each glance at the sidewalk. He was so far from the ground, his perception jumped. Before he knew what he was doing, he lifted his legs back up to chest; his arms trembled beneath him as he pulled himself to his feet. His worn sneakers seemed dislocated against the bricked ledge of the school building. He almost felt guilty tarnishing its integrity with his problems. His eyes narrowed in the hazy sunlight as he searched for something nonexistent in the distance. For just barely a second, the unbelievable warmth engulfed him, comforted him. For just barely a second, he felt _safe_. He felt all right for the first time in months. How ironic, he thought.

As he refocused his attention on the busy Toronto avenue below him, that momentary feeling of comfort was shoved to the very back of his mind. His heart pounded in his chest, his stomach churned at the thought of what could happen if he slipped or took just one, tiny step forward.

For a moment, he entertained the idea of taking flight over the lively street, feeling the wind whip against his cheeks as he curled upwards only to be defeated by gravity. The thought appealed to him, and then immediately appalled him. He _wouldn't._ The rational Cam wouldn't. But was that true anymore? His hands began to quake, his limbs grew numb.

"_Just jealous? You're crazy!" _Maya's voice ran circles around his thoughts, echoing and meshing and contorting and torturing. And his heart chipped away at itself, bit by bit. What he feared most had fallen into his cards while he wasn't looking. In that moment, he wished he could have made excuses for himself, but the fact of the matter was, he _was _crazy. Sanity had flown from his grasp years ago. His only regret was fooling her into thinking she had fallen for someone stable.

The look in her eye, the shriek she let out after his knuckles had connected with the side of Zig's face, the disgust she had spewed all over him in the hallway; she _hated _him. But had she ever loved him at all? During their forty-eight-hour breakup, she had kissed the black-haired, smooth boyfriend of her best friend, the same boy now sporting a black eye. She said it was a mistake, she said she was confused, but there she was, _smiling _and _laughing _and _joking _and _flirting _with him. He couldn't restrain himself. He couldn't let Zig take his only harbinger of happiness.

But in his attempt to save it, he'd crushed any chance of recovering it.

He watched as an insignificant teardrop slid over his cheek and took the three-story plunge, disappearing somewhere between his face and the ledge. The sharp, clear picture his eyes had taken in turned into nothing more than a blur of dull colors. He mentally cursed himself for being so pathetic. Why couldn't he just do it? Why couldn't he just step down off the unreliable stone ledge and go on to the pep rally, completely forgetting the rash decision he almost made? His legs wouldn't move; his feet remained glued to the precipice.

He hadn't ventured up to the rooftop to doing anything stupid—or maybe he did—he couldn't remember. He'd like to believe he had simply gone up there to clear his head, to get everything out before he cracked or went off or found himself in the back corner of the boys' washroom again, clinging to his knees and bawling. But if that was true, how had he ended up draggling over the edge of Degrassi? He couldn't explain that away. His chest began to ache as he struggled to draw in shaky, shallow breaths. An iron fist grasped his lungs, rendering his every attempt futile. His heart pounded in his ears, flushing out every other noise.

His head spun uncomfortably, the brisk autumn air bit at his ears. Inevitable nausea began to claw its way out of his stomach. From somewhere behind him, he thought he heard hushed voices and light footsteps and the ruffling of plants, but was too horrified to turn around. On the street below him, flashes of red and blue drew his attention, his vision far too impaired to make out anything other than the erratic surges of color. He held his arms out, desperately trying to keep his balance. His sweaty palms sent chills down his entire body.

All comfort he had found in the light of the sun had diminished as quickly as it had come on. Panic bounced around in his abdomen like a pinball. He needed to do _something_ before he inadvertently fell over.

Suddenly, a pair of muscular arms wrapped themselves around his torso, knocking him off balance. For a terrifying moment, he was almost positive he was going to fall and tumble through space and time until he hit the concrete sidewalk with a sickening smack. Instead of falling forward, however, he was yanked backwards before landing on a very muscular body attached to the arms that had nearly killed him. _"Jesus Christ, Rookie!"_ Barely audible, the words slipped in through his ears.

Almost instantly, the wave of nausea overtook him. Before he could scramble far enough from whom he had landed on, his stomach heaved, emptying its entire contents onto the stained concrete of the roof. Blood rushed through his ears, but it still wasn't enough to mask the cries of disgust from the older boy that had pulled him off the ledge. After a few minutes of forcing himself to regain control of his reflexes, he sat back on his heels, feeling more juvenile than he had in a long time. He covered his mouth with the hem of his thin sweatshirt, refusing to look up.

"What were you— what is your— are you insane?" The cracked voice pierced his eardrums, turning his stomach once again. He hunched his shoulders over even more, shielding his face even further from the seething Mike Dallas. He could almost feel his teammate's heartbeat from where he sat, nearly echoing his own. His eyes wandered a bit past Dallas's trainers, six sets of similar sneakers glared back at him. He began to feel even worse.

"Mike," a much quieter voice broke through, "don't." Owen, the only_ Ice Hound _with any sort of conscience as he proved time after time, held the ranks back. Campbell could feel each set of eyes boring into his skin. He folded even further into himself, his teeth clamped on his lower lip in an attempt to bite back tears. His arms wrapped around his stomach. He rocked himself ever so slowly; vividly aware of how psychotic he appeared. The same asphyxiating feeling that he had become far too acquainted with washed back over him. Anxiety rose from his belly, exploding in sporadic bursts. Beads of cold sweat cropped up along his forehead, his heart jumped to his throat, threatening to pop out of his mouth. His lungs flatten themselves, his ribcage closing in on the rest of him.

The tears he had tried so desperately to shove back shattered into disassociated sobs, each a screaming wail, a terrified beg for help.

As if he'd been listening to them with his head submerged in water, their muffled conversation met his ears in disordered spurts. It didn't matter; he couldn't make heads or tails of anything. His head had buried itself in his hands, his fingers tugging on fistfuls of chestnut hair. His mind ran circles around him, sinking ships spinning around and around and around, forgetting to leave him time to catch his breath.

Without warning, the same set of arms that had yanked him from the ledge embraced him. Dallas's large hands cradled the smaller boy, holding his head against his chest. "You're okay, Cam. Shh, you're okay." He murmured. Still, his vision tunneled further and further inwards, pain spreading through his veins like ice. The light-headed feeling filled in up to the crown of his head, he was swimming in his own panic, in so deep that he couldn't foresee any sign of resurfacing.

* * *

"Cam, you're okay. It's okay; you're going to be okay. Shh, calm down." Dallas dropped his voice to a whisper, praying to God it wasn't what it looked like, because if it was, he and the rest of them had most likely played a rather large factor in every decision leading up to where their youngest and most valued player was now. Dallas was so consumed he didn't even bother to conceal the streams stemming from his eyes. He was the captain, for God sakes! How had he missed something like this in one of his very own players?

"Damn, the whole emergency task force is down there," Luke commented as he surveyed the street beneath them, his hands wildly gesturing toward the several squad cars and the lonely ambulance congregating in front of the school. His stomach dropped as he suddenly found himself hoping Campbell wouldn't remember any of this, that the breakdown he was caught in the midst of would have some kind of altering effect on his memory. He hoped for his sake that he'd be sent home for a while, just until it blew over, and then return to the team. _Ideally, right in time for states._

He kicked himself for allowing the latter to creep across his thoughts. Whatever this was, the chances of it being fixed with a quick hug from Mommy were slim to none and their star player would most likely not be rejoining to the team. Try as he might, he couldn't fight back the feeling that there was something he could have done to prevent this, that somehow it was his fault, _their _fault. Everyone's. He knew from day one there was something off about their little rookie. He was quiet, shy, uneasy. He shrunk away from any kind of social setting; he was perpetually nervous, quite comical how he dominated the ice when he could barely order food in a restaurant.

And Dallas knew this and he took advantage of it.

He used Campbell's vulnerabilities for his own benefit.

He _used _Campbell.

This was his fault.

He had been so consumed in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice the pair of paramedics grappling for the boy in his arms. "You've got to let him go, son," a man in his late twenties, he gently pried Cam from his protective embrace while the other tapped a syringe. He froze, ice water spreading through his veins. Dallas watched on as the second medic shot whatever had been in the syringe into Cam's arm, his eyes refused to turn elsewhere as he fell limp; his breathless struggles silenced. In the blink of an eye, they carted him away.

Before they had gotten the fifteen year old away from him, his choked sobs bristled into words so icy on his cheek he thought winter had fallen back over Toronto. His teammates wore carbon-copy looks of shock, bewilderment, grief, but nothing indicating they heard.

"_I wanted to." _He told him, barely audible, a rasping disguised so easily as yet another gasp for breath. But it was there and it was real. _"I wanted to," _he said, and Dallas hoped he had meant something else.

* * *

_"Maya, you need to come with me." _

Principal Simpson's wearied expression jump-started the bilious feeling collecting behind her throat. Not even twenty minutes had gone by since his voice had broken over the PA system, demanding all blinds be drawn, all students to take a seat in one of the amenities. Lockdown; no one in, no one out. She hadn't been concerned—not at first anyway. She was far too infuriated to feel anything. After spurting apology after apology to Zig for Cam's uncharacteristic behavior, she had resorted to searching for information.

Nothing. No one knew anything, a rarity at Degrassi.

But as the minutes ticked on by, her stomach began to tie itself in knots. From where she sat, she could hear sirens whirring around and around the still, April air. Degrassi was no stranger to illegal activity, but this felt different. There had to be something going on outside that they didn't want anyone to see. Out of habit, her eyes scanned the faces of everyone in her section of the library, looking for any sign of Tori or Tristan or Cam or Katie or any of the _Ice Hounds _because no doubt they had something to do with it_—_nothing. The knots tightened.

She scrambled to her feet at Mr. Simpson's demand, straining to keep in step with him. She remained silent their whole journey, untrusting of her own voice. Her nerves had been thrown into hyper drive. They traveled through corridors of curious faces, some tossing questions, others tossing encouraging looks, a few tossing paper footballs to each other. Before Maya could adequately prepare herself for whatever news Simpson was about to bring her, he ushered her into his office. Five very grim looking _Ice Hounds _met her on her way in. Mike Dallas's cheeks were stained with the remnants of little rivers of salt. Her stomach dropped, her knees began to knock together.

_Cam. _

"Maya, has Campbell ever mentioned being depressed or upset or stressed to you?" Instantly, a flipbook of every red-flag that should have been raised in her head, but for some reason never was, ran through her thoughts.

_I don't like hockey, Maya. _

_I just nicked my skate, Maya._

_I just want to be happy, Maya. _

_I'm sad, I just want it to go away, Maya. _

_I'm not some loser who tries to hurt himself, Maya. _

_Stop worrying so much, I'm going to be—I am fine, Maya. _

_I'm sorry, I—I couldn't stop myself. I was just jealous, Maya. _

Her breath hitched in her throat. "What happened?" She choked, her eyes darting back and forth between the older boys and the principal. Her heart hammered in her chest, unsure of whether or not she wanted to hear the answer.

"Maya… What happened in the gym today, did Cam come talk to you about anything?" Simpson ducked her question. She wasn't having it.

"Where is he?" She tried again, cringing at how squeaky her voice had become. Tears threatened to spill over her flushed cheeks. Her very own words repeated themselves over and over again inside the confines of her skull; _you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy. _

"He was taken to the hospital." The balding man sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, defeated. "He tried to kill himself, Maya."

Just like that, her world shattered around her in more shards and pieces than she could even fathom.

* * *

White walls, white floor tiles, white lab coats, white record sheets, white light pouring in through the white blinds; he had to close his eyes to keep himself from going blind, though he wished he was deaf. Incessant beeping flooded the otherwise pin-drop-quiet room. Heart monitors, IV drips, machines. It was enough to drive anyone crazy. But he didn't need to be driven; he was already there. There wasn't a scratch on him—unless you counted the scars dappling his palms and upper arms—but still, they refused to let him leave the hospital. _Observations, _one of the many doctors had told him when he asked why. _Standard procedure, _piped another. His nurse was the bluntest of all; _because we need to make sure you're not going leave here and throw yourself in front of a car. _

He spent his days rolled onto his side, turned away from all human interaction. He pretended to sleep every time his family members waltzed through the threshold; pretending was easier than facing the heartbroken, guilt-ridden expressions of his mother; the disappointed, ashamed glare of his father; the _I-told-you-so _look of his older brother; and the _why would you try such a thing? _ frown of his older sister. His younger brother just asked questions: _why is Cam in the hospital? Why is everyone so sad? Why is he so tired? Is he sick? _

He counted the days by 'see-you-tomorrow's, but soon even that became too tedious, too exhausting. His head constantly buzzed, struggling to make sense of his roof-top breakdown. Would he really have done it? He couldn't answer that. Mike Dallas had taken his decision away from him. He didn't have room to think about _'would have's _or _'what if's._ Instead, he put them into the future tense. Would he try it again? But he couldn't answer that either.

Indecision was almost worse than knowing, accepting, _feeling. _

Classmates, teachers, teammates, his coach, everyone seemed to flock to his sullen room, as if they suddenly cared about how he was doing now that he had outed himself as a certified maniac. He had appointed his billet parents as his bouncers. "_I don't want to see anyone," _he told them, his voice a harsh and cracked whisper. Every evening, they gave him the rundown of who had asked for him. Every evening it was the same: _A few of your hockey friends stopped by this morning, this teacher wants to know if you're up to doing catch-up work. And Maya, she stopped by three times today. _It was getting harder to ignore them—harder to ignore _her. _

Someday after his fourth day of imprisonment, he cracked.

"Tell Maya she can come in." He murmured. His eyes had found her blond curls in the doorway before his mother could block his view. Slightly miffed, Mrs. Saunders stepped aside, instantly flitting to his side, leaving Maya standing in headlights, her fair skin twice as pale as he had remembered; her crystalline blue eyes soggy and detached behind her angular frames. Beside him, his mom glowered. _Her _Cam couldn't have possibly contemplated throwing himself off a building. _Her _Cam didn't hurt himself. Sure, _her _Cam had a few problems with his anxiety, but _her _Cam was managing just fine. She had drawn conclusions for herself; this girl, this Maya, she was the cause.

"Uh, hi." She hesitated in entering, as if afraid she'd catch his crazy. Her steps were small and haphazard, her feet twisting beneath her. "I—I just wanted to see if you were awake." Her voice, timid and shaky, carried across the room, stinging his skin.

"Mom, can you leave?" He huffed. It'd been hard enough to catch his breath with her hovering above him at all times, begging him to give her answers he knew she didn't want to hear. She formulated her own theories when he didn't respond. _Cam wasn't going to jump; he was watching planes like he did when he was a little boy. The hockey kids scared him. _He didn't need her to supervise his every movement.

"I don't think that's such a great idea." She shook her head to emphasize her point. Her hands found his shoulders, her fingers like ice against the paper-thin gown tied around his back. "Mom, you need to go." He forced, shaking her off. The hurt shadows found their way back to her eyes as she stood to go. He tried his best to ignore it.

"Maya…"The word bubbled off his lips as soon as the door had closed. In an instant, he had gone from completely paralyzed to on fire. He slithered out from underneath the papery blankets, his flannel pajama bottoms falling over his heels. Maya shifted uneasily. He pretended not to notice. He needed to tell her, he needed to apologize to her, he just needed _her._

* * *

"Maya," He repeated. As soon as Mrs. Saunders had exited the stuffy hospital room, his features melted into one another, the corners of his mouth turning down ever so slightly. He looked disappointed, forlorn, _empty_. But there he was; standing, alive, but so unlike himself. His warm brown eyes had gone cold on her, his scruffy hair bordered on disheveled. He looked smaller than he did in the gym last Friday, pastier.

She watched as he shuffled his feet, with each step the wires connecting him to this machine and that machine grew tauter. He must have noticed this too because frustration etched itself into every crevice of his face; his fingers ran over the IV line taped onto the back of his hand. For a fleeting moment, she was positive he was going to rip the tube from his skin, his blood expelling from the vein it had punctured. He had already proven he wasn't afraid of hurting, wasn't afraid of bleeding, wasn't afraid of dying; it wasn't too wild to think that he'd do it.

"Cam," She squeaked, enveloping him in a tight hug, sure to pin his arms to his sides. Her fingers grasped the strings of his hospital gown; she buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent. She wished she could turn back the hands of time, go back to their very first date and start over. On her constant path to finding Cam happiness, to keeping him safe, she had beaten him and broken him and crushed him into powder. In her attempt to become his umbrella, she had become the rain.

"Does everyone know?" His question took her by surprising. She pulled back, her spindly hands still clutching his arms. Again, the childlike aura blanketed him. It was a rather naïve question; of course everyone knew. Privacy was a privilege that simply didn't exist in Degrassi, and the fact that he had lost it during school didn't help his case any. Teachers had talked about him in the round-about sense; they never mentioned a name, but by taking a look around classrooms and taking notice of who was missing was hardly a difficult feat. Before he had even been removed from the building, a shrine had popped up in an empty display case; his jersey, pictures, kind words printed on slips of paper, flower petals. He would have hated it, and someone else seemed to feel the same. Within two days of the little memorial's appearance, someone had wrecked it. Tori and Tristan thought it awful, but she knew otherwise. Rumors surfaced about who may have done it. It wasn't rocket science; Mike Dallas had been storming through the hallways all week.

"No one knows." She lied; a pitiful shot at a smile befell on her lips. He didn't need to know, she decided. He didn't need the stress.

"I can't remember if I was really going to do it." His eyes bore into hers; her hands fell from his arms. She couldn't find the strength to pull her lower jaw back up to the rest of her face. She didn't want this, she didn't want to know. She couldn't do it; as much as she had told herself she had pushed him to the edge, she couldn't bear to hear it from the boy in front of her. He ignored the subtle shake of her head.

"I—I fell apart, I thought—there was nothing left for me. I messed everything up, Maya. Spring break didn't make me any happier, I punched Zig, I lost hockey, I lost _you…" _He paused, wiping the back of his hand across his cheeks. "I can't remember how I got onto the ledge. I don't remember physically climbing up onto it, I just remember being there and I was dizzy and confused and panicking," His eyes fell; a sharp breath resounded between the two of them. "I—I just wanted it to end, Maya. And for a minute, I thought about jumping, and I weighed options, and I thought about how easy it would be, and I knew it would stop this constant anxiety, and it would fix everything, but before I made up my mind, or maybe I didn't at all, Dallas pulled me back and that was it." Tears ran like rivers over her cheeks, her face mirrored in Cam's smeared eyes. His shoulders shuddered; every so often a little droplet would break free from the little pools collecting on his eyelashes.

Her tongue tripped over unspoken words. With every word he placed between them, the cloud hanging over her head grew darker and darker. Cam, oblivious to her needs—_as always, _she thought bitterly; it was like she couldn't stop it, even though she knew, she _knew_—continued, sputtering as he stumbled through. "I should have just done it. I should have—it would have been better for everyone. God, I—look what I've done. I have to go home and face everyone and my parents can't even look at me without seeing the same basket-case they sent away and you and your friends and—I should have done it."

Her head spun back and forth so quickly she thought for sure it was going to detach from her neck. Against her will, she had taken three steps back, holding her arms in front of her as if to stop him from coming any closer. She couldn't do this. She couldn't stand there and listen to him tell her he wished he'd pulled himself together sooner, wished he decided quicker. She couldn't stand there and listen to him cry, listen to his shattered voice that reflected his state of mind far too well. She couldn't.

The beeping emitted from the cardiac monitor across the room quickened; Campbell's wired hands covered his face, the plastic piece attached to the machine cupped around his index finger. She shouldn't have come, she should have taken the hint the very first day she tried to visit; he didn't want to see her. Her own heart beat increase as she took a few more steps backwards.

"I have—I have to go." She choked, her clumsy feet stumbling over each other.

"No, Maya, please." Cam's sodden brown eyes pleaded with her, begged her to remain glued to the meticulously cleaned tiles. She couldn't.

"I'm sorry." She sobbed, backtracking through the doorway. Her hands furiously rubbed her cheeks raw; her legs propelled her down the corridor, Cam's family members calling after her for answers. She pressed on. Behind her, she could hear him screaming, a heart-wrenching, ear-splitting, defeating pierce in the otherwise quiet hall.

_"Get out! Get out!" _He raged, the jumbled sounds all fitting together seamlessly.

"_You—stop! Let go of me, I'm fine. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!" _She willed herself to move faster.

"_Leave me alone." _He shrieked, sending chills down her spine. This was not her Cam. The Cam she knew was docile to a fault. The Cam she knew was quiet and shy and grew embarrassed when asked to speak out in class. This Cam, he was something else.

"_Get away from me; I'm not going to kill myself and I never was!" _He lied. He lied to family, he lied to the doctors, he had lied to her for as long as she'd known him. Her trembling fingers dug into her pocket for her iPod, the earphones fitting flawlessly into her ears. Though much too loud, she turned the volume all the way up, _anything _to drown out his cries. She couldn't do it, any of it. She couldn't help him, she couldn't save him, she couldn't shoulder the responsibility, she couldn't continue knowing what he had confirmed. She couldn't, wouldn't.

* * *

Campbell Saunders did not return to Degrassi.

He hadn't been 'lost,' he hadn't died, but he was just as well. In regards to his Torontonian life, at least. The _Ice Hounds_ went on to win the regional championship, compensating for their missing link. Locker X-499 in the D-wing was cleaned out and vacated for whoever decided she needed a change of scenery. Maya found a new French partner. Tori and Tristan filled the empty chair at their lunch table with a theatre friend. Zig made amends, Maya was forgiven. They all fell back into step with each other, erasing the void created by the boy they had only known for half a year as quickly as he had come. Poof, like he was never even there. The world kept spinning, the days kept coming and going, life didn't stop. It never does.

But the thing was, Maya didn't want to ignore the fact that he had been there. She wanted to remember him, _her _Cam. She wanted to remember the way he'd blush after every kiss, the way he smelled like winter and ice, the way he looked at her like she was something else, the way he smiled, laughed, _loved._ She wanted to hold him as close as the day they had sung karaoke. She just wanted him to be a part of her, a little piece of her heart on reservation. She wanted to remind herself that Cam had been happy with her, happy until she had screwed him over.

While flipping through the pages on her bookshelf, she read the following:

"_Let me guess. You want to know why I tried to kill myself. _

_It's OK. People do. They measure themselves against me. It's like this line is drawn somewhere in the world and if you never cross it, you'll never consider throwing yourself off a building or swallowing a bottle of pills—but if you do, you might. People figure I crossed the line. They ask themselves, "Can I ever get as close as he did?"_

_The truth is, there is no line. There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you._

_Or who isn't." _

Was she?

* * *

**A/N:** I'm not sure how thrilled I am about the last section, but it'll do. The quote is not mine in any way, shape, or form. God, no. It's on the very first page of _For One More Day _by Mitch Albom, which is a fabulous, fabulous book. If you haven't read it, get yourself to a library a.s.a.p. and read it. Mitch Albom is a fantastic author, one of my favorites! I sincerely hope you guys enjoyed this; I worked very hard and very long on this. It's not, you know, top notch, but it's as good as I could produce with all of the promo feels. Lols.

Since we're all done here, I just want to say one thing: if Cam really _does _jump (if he's the one, who knows?), unless he jumps straight to his head, chances are he will not die. Degrassi is only two/three stories. Paralyzed, broken bones? Absolutely, but not high enough (typically) to kill him. My cousin fell out a second story window as a toddler and she's completely fine. ;)

Thank you for reading xxoo.


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